A good question to ask anyone under 45: remember the '50s? Remember the black-and-white film reels, the cars with fins, and the cheesiest TV commercials sponsors could buy? Of course not, you weren't there. But these images have become part of the modern American mind, accurate or not, and they all come with a soundtrack: production music. The Music for TV Dinners collections bring these instrumental tracks from industry archives onto CD and into your nostalgic ear.
What is production music? Not to be too circular about it, it's the music that played behind all those '50s cultural images, behind the kitchen-cleaner commercials, the driver's ed. videos, the newsreels before movies, even the movies themselves. Production music makes up its own industry, assembling "prefab" instrumental music that is inoffensive to the ear and evocative of the appropriate consumer-related mood. At least, it did make up its own industry when this kind of material was in demand from the '50s through the '70s.
If your head is spinning trying to grasp what this sounds like, don't bother yourself - you've heard it already. You would recognize most of the tracks on the two CDs, and they'd all at least sound familiar. The most quasi-contemporary example of famous production music would be on The Ren and Stimpy Show (1991-1995). Ren and Stimpy often featured animated "advertisements" for nonsensical toys, and the soundtrack was invariably production music. The second track on Music for TV Dinners, Laurie Johnson's "Happy Go Lively," should immediately recall Ren and Stimpy to anyone familiar with the show.
For something as inane, artificial, and cheery as production music, the songs are impressively effective at evoking specific moods. The Music for TV Dinners collections include little blurbs on each song - on "Trafficscape," for example, "A fast paced, noisy, and comical tune for avoiding road fatalities," - but you won't need them to understand the message of any given song. The rhythms, melodies, and instruments imitate their intended scene so well that the image of a crowded highway jumps to mind immediately, complete with good ol' Dad cruising his way home to his pipe, slippers, wife, and 2.3 children: he's hit some traffic on the way home, but he'll be there soon enough.
Besides being well suited to their topics, these songs are irrationally catchy, though at the same time eminently forgettable. You'll bop your head along to every track, but not be able to hum the melody a minute after it ends.
These two compilations of production music, Music for TV Dinners and Music for TV Dinners: The '60s, collect some of the genre's most explosive and well-worn tunes. Songs like "Holiday Playtime," "Bargains Galore," and "Shopping Spree" may not have familiar-sounding titles, but the music itself is irrepressibly familiar.
The composers are equally unknown, though they're anything but anonymous: names like King Palmer, Jack Beaver, John Shakespeare, and Syd Dale sound more like porn stars than composers. Most people have no idea of the industry behind production music, and even fewer have ever heard one of the names behind the soundtrack.
The second disc, Music for TV Dinners: The '60s, is somewhat less recognizable than its companion volume, but it's more distinctive to its era and therefore more consistent in tone. Like the other disc, each song is short, averaging just over two minutes per track, and it covers many different aural scenes. With everything from car chases to shopping trips, it's a great '60s psychedelic mood-setter - if you're looking to alienate whomever you're trying to set the mood with, that is. This is not what most people expect to hear coming out of your stereo.
If it's so unexpected and disconcerting, why should you want to listen? If you're not sure about it, go online and listen to some samples. You'll know right away whether it's for you. For some, the very shock value of playing this music may be worth it. Other people appreciate the charm of production music. For all its artificiality, it qualifies as some of the catchiest and strangest easy listening you'll ever find. You don't listen to Music for TV Dinners to pay attention to the details. Put it on, do some work, and let the people down the hall wonder what you're up to.
